Do you like me?

I had a thought today, one that is not original, new, or brilliant. It is, however, foundational, and necessary, and lacking in today's culture. For the huge majority of my life, it has been absent in my heart. So, naturally, I tweeted about it. This is a delicate topic, and I hope that no one reading this will feel as though I am judging them or calling them out. That is not my intention. If God uses this post to move someone's heart, or convict of behaviors or attitudes, that would be great. But it's not my intention to cause guilt or shame or make people feel judged. Anyway. This is what I tweeted:

Let me give you some background in my life. This will sound familiar to many of you, so I'll be brief.

For the last 8 years of my life, the opinion and affection of girls has been a major heart idol of mine. That this is a common idol to many, many people does not excuse its presence and effects in my life. I have played with girls' hearts, I have allowed myself to become an idol in their hearts, I have hurt them through my extreme selfishness and self-centeredness...and I have moved on, time and again, without true repentance or sorrow. It may have seemed, at times, that I had gotten it (think this), but I didn't.
With that background in mind, please believe me when I tell you that it has never been fulfilling to the extent that I hoped and believed it would be to know that a girl cared for me in the way that I cared for her (and in some cases, the girl cared for me in a much more admirable and deep way than I did for her).
I believe that, finally, God has brought me to the point of repentance and true sorrow. It took years of frustrating, empty relationships and the pain resulting from them for me to realize that all of the attention I craved and built my life and actions around really wasn't going to do it. I wince at the idea of how much pain I have caused through my destructive actions, at the unrestrained, impossible words, and at the sin I have committed, alone and with/to others.
The reason I'm telling you these things that I have done are in the hope that you will not go through similar situations. To a large extent, we learn from the things that we do. But it is my hope that you can learn from hearing from what others have done, too.
Anyway...back to my original thought in this post. There are many ideas in our culture:

•  romance is inescapable and preeminent
• if it feels good (be it emotionally or physically), do it
• we have to test different personalities (through dating and/or sleeping around) to determine who we are or will be compatible with 
• love waits for no one

All of these viewpoints are lies. For years, I have built my life around the idea that if only I was in a relationship with a girl who cared for me as I did for her, I would be complete. Time and again, God has forced me to admit that it wasn't enough.

I know what it's like to feel the immense pressure and desire to make my feelings known. I also know now how stupid it was of me to think that it was necessary to make them known. By telling various girls that I liked them, I did nothing but cause hurt for both of us, whether anything came of it or not. If you think you care enough for someone to want to be in a relationship with them, it should be a relationship that is marriage. That was the point of my tweet: so often men pursue girls without understanding that if they're not ready to support that girl in marriage, beginning a relationship is going to cause pain. As a Christian, I am called to a higher standard. There's a method. For me, no romantic relationship should be initiated if my end goal in it is not marriage, and no romantic relationship should be begun until I know how I will support that marriage.
Telling a girl that I like her is pointless if I do not intend to begin an intentional relationship with her that will culminate in marriage. I have stated my feelings to girls before, and then found myself in the quandary of not knowing what to do next. This is a common conundrum...we are left to wonder, "What next?"
The saying that "True Love Waits" does not only apply only to the physical side of love, but also to the emotional side of it. True love also waits to begin a relationship until there's a clear path to walk on. Does this make sense? I hope so.
Application (for me, and maybe for you): I will not indicate interest to a girl until God indicates to me that my circumstances are right (yes, the hated requirements: maturity, financial security, long-term viability, life direction...) to pursue her with the intention of marriage. I will not attempt to decipher a girl's attitude toward me unless I have cause to believe that I am leading her on or until I've begun my attempt to win her heart for the purpose of marriage. My heart may overflow with feelings, with the need to speak, but there's no point if there's nowhere to go from there. So, for me and for other guys (perhaps), don't say anything about how you feel toward her until you're in a place where you can do something lasting with those feelings.
Girls, please: I understand how few good men there are around. I'm sorry that we're slacking off. I can only guess at how hard it is for you to wait for the right guy to come along. What will be best for you is if you don't try to figure out what a guy is thinking (romantically) toward you. If he cares enough about you to wait until he's ready to pursue a long-term relationship (meaning...for life), then he's probably worthy of you. The guys who don't wait are not worthy. You will save yourself a lot of heartache and worrying if you wait until you're approached by one of the long-term suspects. :) Playing head games just isn't worth it.
I'm not preaching, except to myself. The difference now, for me, is that my goal is Jesus. In all my friendships with Christian girls lately (the only real friendships with girls I have, in case you're wondering), I've been doing my very best to make it clear that I have one goal for a friendship with them: to pursue Jesus, and to encourage and be encouraged by them in our pursuit of Him. The choice must be to trust Him. Honesty with girls has opened up potential in my friendships for greater encouragement and joy. It's still hard, and it will continue to be hard, to battle with my deceitful heart. But if I commit to waiting, truly waiting, until the time when I am ready to actually do something about a relationship, I'm convinced that it will be far better than the poor imitations I've experienced thus far. I've got the Word on my side. :)

The "Gospel Giggles"

Have you ever heard a cicada and laughed? Have you ever thought about the idea that the green grass we walk upon, the kind that turns brown in the winter and drought, and shoots to life in the spring practically overnight, is personally attended to, blade by blade, by God? Ha. I hadn't. Today, though, something was different.

I got up this morning at six a.m., groaning as my dad, who has been helping me wake up in the mornings (at my behest) gently encouraged me to awake, reading from my body language that getting out of bed was the last thing I actually wanted to do. Finally, to placate him, I got up, got dressed, and headed down to the living room to recline on the couch and read a Psalm before curling up for another 45 minutes. The battle against myself continues, morning by morning (Pray for me!). At 7, I left my house, and headed to school, driving through fog so thick that I couldn't see what color the streetlights were till I was almost in the intersections. I love fog. I love how impenetrable it is, how the sun burns it away as if it were nothing more than a flimsy curtain on a radiant stage. 

At school, I read another Psalm, and remembered my neediness (as for me, I am poor and needy). Without much time for further delving, I headed into Spanish class. Exiting another 50 minutes later, I delivered a long overdue birthday present to a friend and then headed to the computer lab to take the open-book quiz due for my history class that morning. On the way, I got several texts from my brother: "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever." (Jude 24, 25) Not overly enthused, but aware of the power encompassed in those words, I told Johnny I'd do my best to "try and chew on it." Habitual sin, the kind that I battle with, has a way of sapping the energy to pursue Christ out of me. 

Something happened, though, as the day went on. I noticed it as I walked to and from my next two classes: joy. Elation. I was noticing little things and being tickled by how marvelous they were. The leaves on the trees. The veins on my arm. The freckles on my classmate's face (okay, weird, I know). A smile, one I knew was cause for quizzical looks from passersby, grew larger and more noticeable. Onward through my day I journeyed, to the Bible study with my family on campus, Koinonia.

Today we discussed who God is. Oh my goodness. Have you ever tried to think about how huge a topic that is? Think about it. Now, realize how impossible it is to comprehend. Such was my conclusion as my small discussion group looked up the verses on our handout that were listed about God. As we talked about the holiness of God, about his infinite being, about his radical forgiveness, about his choice to give us the choice to choose him or death...I had no ability to do anything but laugh. Have you ever tried to truly understand how ridiculous it is that we have been given the ability to enter into the family of the most powerful being in existence, the ONE who created everything we know and take for granted? Keep trying. 

As my brain scrambled for the rest of the study to wrap my mind around how unjustly merciful to me God is, I began noticing little things;  there were cicadas buzzing (hilarious!), the grass was cool beneath my feet (ha!), the veins in my arms are carrying the blood that keeps me alive (ohmygoodness)! At that point, I was through. The rest of my day has been full of giggling.

I have walked through the hallways, laughing at the brilliancy of the music in my headphones. 

I have yelled for joy on the highway with the windows down at the greatness of His joy and mercy. 

We played volleyball tonight, and at times, there were moments when I have gotten upset and angry in the past at the low level of play and seriousness in my teammates. Tonight, I laughed at the individual greatness of each of their personalities (Team Giggle? How apt, Grosdidier!). 

I have smiled, over and over again, at how He orchestrates every single little thing in my life. Those tiny beard hairs that make up my beard? He causes each one to grow, at its location and length, on my face. HA! My mind is in overdrive, today. What is better than to see all of the little things that make up the manifold, unmerited, HUGE grace of God? One thing: the huge thing that makes all of the little things hold meaning. Jesus died. 

Can you understand the truth that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly? There are many ways to react to that truth, and today, mine has been wonder. Laughter. Joy. I am filled with a joy that I do not deserve and did nothing to receive. 

The laughter (mostly to myself in small spurts of uncontrolled giggling) that has made my day so liveable today is of a kind that I have never known before. My prayer is that I will continue to see just how amazing all of the little gifts that I do not notice normally are, that my eyes would continue to be opened to the brilliance of an ant, to the whisper of the wind, to the individual grains of sand that we trod so thoughtlessly in multitudinous games of volleyball. These things are portholes into the ocean of God's personality, keyholes into the whimsy of His creativity. They are gifts, wrapped individually and unmistakably in a different color and shape and texture of wrapping paper. I should never run out of things to giggle at. I should never have reason to stop smiling without obvious cause. There's an ocean in an ant. 

Knowing Becomes Believing

So. I'm still working myself back towards writing a "real" post. For now, I'm giving you writing from the past. It's pretty open of me...so hopefully you aren't shocked by what you see. :) A lot of this is an ongoing struggle, too. Please don't think I write from a viewpoint of expertise. Maybe a lot of what you've seen in my life will make sense after you read this. I don't know. I guess you'll find out. Let me know what you think, please.

Knowing Becomes Believing

    The boy walked into the quiet night, stepping towards the massive concrete structure that loomed towards him.  Dark thoughts circulating in his head, he wondered why he was in this situation and if he would ever get out. He envisioned the newspaper headlines that would appear the next day if he decided to give up hope of ever escaping his demons: “Boy found dead on eve of 18th birthday.” Recognizing them as stupid thoughts, he pushed them away and walked away from the soothing dam and calming lights, continuing his search for something that would assuage his doubts and calm his fears.
    He had not always been like this. For years, he had been involved with children’s ministries: Backyard Bible Clubs, Good News Clubs, summer Bible camps, home schooling children’s conferences, tutoring inner city kids. They had made him feel close to God, enjoy his life, and feel like he was giving to people. But something was different. He felt unreal. There was something missing. He felt trapped by the monster that was his own sinful desires. He was trapped. He tried to keep going, and kept doing the things he had always done, hoping they could still give him the same sense of joy and contentment…
    But eventually his happiness dissipated, slowly, leaving him in near despair and wondering if everything he had taught kids for years was true and real. He had not distanced himself from his church; he still wore the mask of believing what he heard and sang inside the walls of that building. But he doubted. Why couldn’t he ever seem to defeat the sin that had trapped him for years? What was the point in “fighting” if he never won?
    He embarked on a crusade of realness. He no longer disguised his emotions, boldly displaying what he felt on his face and in his writing. He stopped singing some of the songs at the church service, stopped reading his Bible, stopped talking to God. He just tried to get by. He just was. He was still searching, looking for something, anything at all that would make him feel better. Even in his quest to be real and unhypocritical, he failed. He was deceptive. In his quest to find something to make him feel wanted and more loved, he imagined the relationship he could perhaps have with the latest girl to catch his eye. Whenever he saw her, the unspoken words he wished he could say clogged up in his throat like the water behind a dam. But there was never anything he could find to make him happy. Months went by, not devoid of light, but characterized by lengthy periods of night.
    Finally, he made a decision to go back to the place where he had felt closest to God and most alive. He returned to the Bible camp for inner city kids in the countryside of Oklahoma and left his “dark” persona behind him, purposing to be real and find God by depending on Him. He went in with the mindset of going to God for help in the tough situations, and came out with hope and faith. God had not let him down. He was teaching children many of the same things he had taught them before, but it was real to him. He believed now instead of just knowing. He hoped instead of despairing. He was fulfilled instead of empty. This was what he had been looking for. He had found God when he became desperate for Him. And when he returned home, he didn’t leave God in Oklahoma. He kept seeking God, learning about God, and drawing nearer to Him.
    A year removed from the lonely boy walking in the night picturing newspaper headlines, he looked back. Yes, he had made mistakes and encountered setbacks. But he was more than just older. No longer did he question what he believed. No longer did he trust just because that’s what he had been taught. He believed out of experience, and he lived in hope. 

How Flirting Ruined (almost) My Life

       From the comments I got on what I should write about, most just said to write about them all. Thanks for the direction, folks. :) The one person who did tell me to write about something in particular (my life dream) is going to be shunned, because I don't feel like that one. Sorry, Jo. :) I'm writing about flirting because that's what I did and who I was, for years and years. So that's what you get.
       Nobody taught me the art of flirting (can you imagine elementary grade classes on the best ways to flirt? Strange thought.). I learned, like I have seen others learning. I figured things out for myself: what worked best, what didn't, when, where. My first attempts at flirting, looking back, were ineffective and comical. It's interesting to see the same methods being employed by many boys and girls today, as if it's something that every person has to go through, the different stages of flirting. Insulting girls as well being mean to them were my original tactics (a paradoxical and zero result approach...why was I surprised?). From there I moved on to more show-offishness, although that had been there with the cruel words . Being arrogant and judgmental isn't a good combination, and I ditched those methods as well. Now, if I tell you what worked, will you be good and not use them? Good. Because I hit pay dirt when I began taking good and desirable Christian qualities and using them to ingratiate myself with girls. It works to be nice. It works even better to listen to our female counterparts. That's the progression I underwent. I don't think I need to give you specific instances, as I'm sure many of my readers (who actually know me and have seen me in action) are having flashbacks of that Peter, or seeing him. I'm sorry. I'll give a full and heartfelt apology at the end.
     Of course, flirting is viewed as a normal and even attractive trait in the world's eyes. Let me tell you how it hindered and hurt me, as well as others. I don't want to blame my church, my parents, or friends; I was not taught to guard my heart. I was taught to help a girl guard her heart, to not defraud her, but never to "guard your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life." That's how I became such a flirt, and unaware of my flirtatiousness to the extent that the first time somebody told me I was a flirt I was angry with her for months. I wanted attention from girls, and I wanted it so much that I would do anything I could with any girl I thought I had a chance with and wanted a chance with to make her like and talk with me. My god was myself, and my drug was attention from girls. Some of my happiest times from those days were times when I felt certain a girl liked me and was getting attention from her that seemed to say that she did. The things that catapulted me into depression were the times when I felt unwanted or unliked by the girls whose attention I craved. Can you see how my spiritual life had no chance? I did good things and thought I was serving God, but I did them for the wrong reasons. I went to staff at summer camps, and flirted with the counselors. I did Backyard Bible Club primarily because of the closeness I felt with the girls who also did it. I was always looking, and I was never satisfied. Not until Jesus showed me that I wasn't valuing Him and couldn't be satisfied by anything else did I see how much of a god I had made girls' attention. Even after Jesus started becoming more real, my old habits (from years of practicing) influenced me to make wrong decisions and eventually get fired from a job that I loved and an opportunity that was great.
     The only reason I can write about this with honesty is because of the incredible mercy that Jesus shows me daily. His grace is why I can stop flirting, although it's still a battle. I have no idea the number of girls I have hurt, or how deeply. It hurts me to think about how much I have hurt them through my insensitivity and self-serving attitude. I don't know exactly how to say how much I regret my actions, and I wish I could remedy those hurts. The best way I know to gain joy and move on from pain is Jesus. Jesus is my one answer, the only answer, the true answer. And that's the only hope I have, and the only hope I can see healing the hurts that I have inflicted. Someday, when I write a book on flirting, I'll have a clearer perspective and be further removed from it. Until then, this will have to do, although it's nowhere near close to enough. Thoughts? Memories? Responses?

A Love That Conquers(ed)

         There's a song by the Swell Season (an absolutely amazing band) called A Love That Conquers. It's a good song, but its message isn't as powerful as it could be if it were referring to THE love that conquers, has conquered, and does conquer: Jesus'. This is the truth that I need to remember every day, the one that has changed my life and will change my life more, the more I remember it.
       There was a really great sermon given today at my church, by an amazing man who I am blessed to have as my brother. He talked about the passion of Jesus Christ, the pain that He went through because of the sins of all...or, more specifically, my sins. He said some things that I had never thought about before really. One of which was this thought, in my words: what Jesus experienced on the cross was not just the punishment for the sin of all...He experienced the personal hell of every single person who ever lived or would live. He was separated from His Father for the first time ever, a union that was stronger, healthier, and closer than any marriage could ever be. Rejection from the One He had always experienced complete communion with is the sacrifice that Jesus made for me, going through my hell along with the hells of every other person ever.
         When Jesus finally uttered the words, "It is finished," He wasn't just saying that His life was ending. I think that more than that, He was proclaiming victory: IT IS FINISHED! All of my sins were cleansed in one act of intense pain, incredible love, deep humility, and utter separation. That love is the love that conquers, and there is no other. Only when that love loves through our sinful natures can we even come close to knowing what true life is all about.
         Something Johnny said in another sermon is that the best life is the one that experiences God to biggest extent possible. That's what life is about, experiencing God. Through Jesus, we can do that, and see God's beauty in the first flowers of spring, the individual and unique snowflakes, the laughing faces of the ones we love, and all the other manifestations of the huge, infinite love that God has for us.

Summer camps and new beginnings

I really want to post a song again, but I think I've been cheating my readers lately and just doing that since my return from Oklahoma. So I'll make good on my promise to post about camp and save the song post for another time. It's a great song, though, so make sure and listen to it when I post it.
So...camp was about learning to trust God. Because that's what I had to do. And I think I learned something: it's easier, so much easier, to trust God with my problems, than to try to solve them myself. So many times, I had a kid who wouldn't behave, or a problem that seemed so huge, but God reminded me that He was the one who holds the answers to every question, every problem, and every need.
And Jesus and God were my encouragement, too. He showed Himself to be stronger than my problems, and also to be aware of them. A kid would come up and give me a gift they'd made for me, or one of my favorite kids would give me one of her two ice pops during free time, or my friends would listen to my problems and pray for me, or I'd get a smile that forced me to smile back. The theme of camp was Jesus as the Ultimate Hero, and He showed Himself to be that to me, through the skits that focused on Jesus' life, through the testimonies of fellow counselors, and through the worship that focused on His power. Jesus is my hero now, more than ever.
If you have questions about camp format or whatever, just ask them, but I think I've had enough talking...time to post some pictures. To protect the kids, I'm not going to post any names, or where they were, because those are the guidelines we have. These kids are so needy...pray for them, please.


Alright. Here are pictures.